


come morning light, you and i'll be safe and sound

by Eloquent_Dreams



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood, Comfort, Gen, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg Friendship, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Lullabies, Minor Original Character(s), Muzzles, Scared Jaskier | Dandelion, Soft Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, The Jaskier At Nilfgaard fic that everyone should have expected from me eventually, Yennefer and Jaskier are imprisoned together, attempted self-harm, by that I mean just unnamed nilfgaardians lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27029317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloquent_Dreams/pseuds/Eloquent_Dreams
Summary: Yennefer and Jaskier’s Nilfgaardian captors racked their brains to Sodden and back, trying to figure out a way to make them give up even the slightest piece of information about Ciri and Geralt. None of them thought of separation, for the two captives still acted like they hated one another so it would look like, in the eyes of Nilfgaard, it was actually like a form of torture to keep them together, rather than apart. The Nilfgaardians knew that Yennefer was already rendered powerless by a demeterium-laced cuff on her wrist that prevented her from using magic, but how could one take power and control from an ordinary human who never really had any extraordinary power to control?Finally, it hit them:Jaskier was a bard. A talkative bard who spent most of his time rambling and singing.His power came from his speech.---After he and Yennefer befriend one another in a Nilfgaardian prison, Jaskier is made to suffer in an attempt to get information on the whereabouts of Geralt of Rivia and his child surprise; Yennefer does everything she can to comfort her friend and try to relieve his pain.
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 26
Kudos: 121





	come morning light, you and i'll be safe and sound

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Safe and Sound" by Taylor Swift feat. The Civil Wars  
> Hope you enjoy some good hurt/comfort!

Yennefer and Jaskier were both captured by Nilfgaard after their respective partings-of-ways with a certain witcher on a certain mountain for a certain reason; they wanted information about the whereabouts of Geralt of Rivia and Cirilla of Cintra. Jaskier was entirely clueless about that information, as the last time he saw his Witcher, he screamed at him and called him a shit-shoveler. Yennefer parted ways with him only minutes before, but she actually _did_ know considerably more information about Geralt’s possible whereabouts than Jaskier. Still, she decided the moment she was brought here that she would never tell them such information because, in Jaskier’s words, which he grumbled only a few minutes after being thrown into a cell with her…

“Fuck Nilfgaard in whatever holes it has.”

This was the first time Yennefer actually agreed with the bard on something.

In time, they both started to enjoy each other's company in their cell, but neither of them admitted it. They were both too proud to call themselves friends, and besides, they both knew that if the guards found out that they found comfort in one another, they would’ve been separated in an attempt to make them suffer even more than they already did. Still, Yennefer found amusement and joy in Jaskier's ramblings and ditties, but she refused his many attempts to get her to sing.

"I'm sure you have the voice of a goddess from the heavens, my lovely lady cellmate." Jaskier told her one day, announcing the compliment with flair like a dramatic line of poetry. Yennefer tilted her head to the side and smirked when she heard this.

"I'm sure you'll never know, bard."

Yennefer and Jaskier’s Nilfgaardian captors racked their brains to Sodden and back, trying to figure out a way to make them give up even the slightest piece of information about Ciri and Geralt. None of them thought of separation, for the two captives still acted like they hated one another so it would look like, in the eyes of Nilfgaard, it was actually like a form of torture to keep them together, rather than apart. The Nilfgaardians knew that Yennefer was already rendered powerless by a demeterium-laced cuff on her wrist that prevented her from using magic, but how could one take power and control from an ordinary human who never really had any extraordinary power to control?

Finally, it hit them:

Jaskier was a bard. A talkative bard who spent most of his time rambling and singing.

His power came from his speech.

* * *

The next day, despite protests from both Yennefer and himself, Jaskier was ripped from their cell without a word. A few hours later, Jaskier was thrown back in without a word. No, not without a word from the guard that threw him back in, but without a word from _Jaskier,_ who collapsed onto his hands and knees and hung his head down.

Yennefer was horrified when Jaskier lifted his head and she saw the reason for the bard’s silence, save for a few whimpers:

A muzzle. It was a metal fucking muzzle.

Her first instinct was to run to him and try to take it off. She acted on this immediately, ignoring both the guard's insincere, taunting advice of "I wouldn't if I were you" and Jaskier's head shaking. She only stopped when Jaskier let out a muffled shriek of pain. The mage’s heart nearly skipped a beat when she felt a new spot of sticky wetness in Jaskier’s hair on the back of his head, underneath her fingertips. She let go of the lock she was tugging at faster than she had let go of anything in her life. When she lifted her hand, the rich red hue that splashed against her skin made bile rise up her throat.

Blood.

She apologized profusely as she instead put her hands on Jaskier's arms to steady him; she knew it wasn’t very deep, nor was it a serious injury - it would heal in a day, probably - but she was reckless, and she made that thing cut him. _She hurt him_.

"'s enchanted." Yennefer heard over the blood pounding in her ears. She snapped her head up, still holding Jaskier, and looked at him with fury in her eyes.

"'s not comin' off 'til one of ya wants to spill about the Witcher. Or the princess. Don' matter which one. Pullin' any shit like that again won' work out any better than it just did."

If it weren't for the demeterium in the cuff on her wrist, that man would have been dead from Yennefer's magic. If it weren't for the long chain attached to said cuff that didn't let her reach to the doorway where he was standing, he would have been dead from her bare hands.

_"One o’ ya be’er decide t’ start singin', or 'e won't sing again."_

Yennefer was not the gentlest or most reassuring person in the Continent - not by a long shot - but once the guard left, she consoled Jaskier and told him it was going to be okay; as soon as she could use her magic again, she would get it off. She promised, and because she knew Nilfgaard couldn’t perform spells that were solely reversible by the caster, this was a promise she was sure she could honor as soon as she was rid of the damn demeterium-cast cuff on her wrist. 

She glanced down at the stone floor of the cell and had a very, very, very impulsive thought; if she could break the bones in her hand badly enough, she’d be able to slip out of the cuff. Then she could use her magic. Then she could get that damn muzzle off of him. Then Jaskier would speak and sing again. Then she wouldn’t have to see him in pain like this.

Yennefer lifted her hand high above her head with every intention of slamming it against the ground as hard as she could. The instant she started to slam her hand down was the same instant when Jaskier realized what she was trying to do.

He grabbed her wrist and held it firmly, stopping her from bringing it down any further. The strength he used to keep her arm still overpowered the strength she was trying to use to bring her arm down, but she continued to resist his grip as she tried to ignore how he shook his head so desperately.

“If I just crush it, I can use my magic to fix this! I can get rid of that thing! I can get us out of here! I can handle it! I can - I can - I - I - I -” she gasped, desperately trying to pull her wrist out of Jaskier’s grip until her eyes met his. Those cornflower eyes, begging silently for her to stop, shimmered with tears of pain and fear, but only some of that fear was about his own predicament.

She realized the reason he wouldn’t let her do this was the same reason she herself wanted to; just like Yennefer couldn’t stand to see Jaskier miserable, Jaskier couldn’t stand to let her hurt herself.

Yennefer sighed a shaky sigh and relaxed her arm in his grip. Slowly, tentatively, Jaskier set her hand down and let go. She put her hands over her face for a second before pulling them down.

“Right. A broken hand wouldn’t solve anything anyway.” she said, though she was mostly just telling herself, “The guards would probably just find out before I can use my magic anyway. Put another cuff somewhere else. It’d be useless. Sorry. I won’t do it.”

At this, Jaskier relaxed - well, as much as he could anyway, which wasn’t very much, given the circumstances. He looked at the ground, and Yennefer tilted her head when she realized he was thinking of something else that troubled him.

“What’s-” She stopped herself from asking what’s wrong. Everything was wrong. “Is there something I can do?”

Jaskier lifted a trembling hand and pointed to Yennefer before he pointed at the door, obviously referring to the guard that just left them here, and put his finger over his lips - well, more specifically, over the metal that covered them.

Yennefer could tell exactly what he meant just by his frantic gestures.

"I know," she reassured him, "I won't tell them a thing. I promise. Not even his favorite color."

Jaskier let out a deep breath through his nose - the closest thing he could do to sighing in relief - and twirled a lock of her raven hair around his finger. Yennefer eyed his hand and smiled faintly; they both knew Geralt’s favorite color was black.

Jaskier tried to stand up and walk to the wall opposite the cell door, but he staggered due to exhaustion and nearly tripped. Yennefer caught him and guided him to the back of their cell, where he hugged his knees close to his chest. She sat up against the wall, right next to him.

"The back of your head... is it still cutting you?"

Jaskier shook his head. Yennefer realized that... that _thing_ must have only cut into him while she was trying to remove it by force, and whatever cut his head retracted itself when she stopped. Guilt twisted around in her stomach.

"I'm sorry." she said for what was likely the twentieth time, the other nineteen falling off her tongue when it first happened. Jaskier shrugged and gave his head a little shake, obviously trying to express that he didn't hold it against her, but the tightness in Yennefer's chest at the pain she caused him was unrelenting.

Jaskier let his head droop after that. Yennefer could tell that the muzzle was heavy. Really fucking heavy.

Against her better judgement, for she knew the possible consequences, she stretched her legs out in front of her and patted her lap.

"Rest your head, Jaskier."

He looked her up and down with worry in his eyes. Shaking his head minutely, he pointed between the two of them, pointed outside - she knew he meant the guards - and put his hands together before ripping them away from one another.

Yennefer nodded and pursed her lips. She knew he was right - they would’ve been separated if they were seen giving comfort like this to one another.

"Right..." she rested her head against the stone wall and closed her eyes, still leaving her legs stretched out.

A beat later, she heard a little shuffling to her right as Jaskier scooted a bit away, and she didn't even think to open her eyes before she felt a weight on her lap.

She looked down and saw Jaskier. He curled his body up on it’s side like a child's, his hands held close to his chest, and he rested his head in her lap, facing away from her as he took short, shaky breaths through his nose.

Yennefer took her left hand, worried the wall-bolted shackle around her right would disturb him, and gently ran her fingers through his chestnut locks, taking special care to avoid touching the pieces of metal that bend around his head. She had no clue how easily that brutal defense mechanism was set off.

"Is this nice?"

Jaskier hummed and nodded, making the metal on his jaw dig into Yennefer's thigh just a bit. It didn't hurt; her lip twitched unnoticeably at the movement.

Her heart sank; she never saw the bard like this before. Even in all the time they’d been stuck here together, he'd had some sort of brightness about him. Now, he just looked deflated. Grey. Broken.

She started to sing.

_"I remember tears streaming down your face when I said I'll never let you go"_

_"When all those shadows almost killed your light"_

Jaskier looked up at her for just a fleeting second, the faintest bit of surprise in his eyes outweighed by how mesmerized he was by the pleasantness of her voice. Yennefer was not used to singing, but who could tell? Her voice was soft and lovely, like how honey or autumn rain would sound if they were voices.

_"I remember you said don't leave me here alone"_

If Jaskier were in a better state, Yennefer was sure that as soon as he heard her sing, he would have made some remark about how she should have been a bard.

But he wasn’t in a better state. That’s why she was doing this.

_"But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight"_

She paused. Jaskier’s breathing wasn’t short and shaky like it before; now, each breath was long and deep. She looked down at Jaskier's face and saw him staring at the wall ahead with heavy, half-open eyes. He was almost asleep.

_“Just close your eyes, the sun is going down”_

_“You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now”_

She noticed how closely he clasped his hands together, and while she continued to stroke his hair with her left hand, she used her right to weave her fingers between Jaskier’s hands. He quickly and instinctively held onto her hand with one of his, letting his other hand go when he found Yennefer’s.

_“Come morning light...”_

Yennefer looked at his face. Aside from grimacing at the steel clamped around the lower half of his face, she could see that his eyes finally shut. Despite the horror of this situation, the sight made something in her heart feel okay, and she let a soft smile tug at the corners of her lips.

She rested her head back against the wall again, situating herself for the night. Not the most comfortable of sleeping positions, of course, but if it would give Jaskier at least some semblance of a good night’s rest, then it was okay.

_“...you and I'll be safe and sound”_

* * *

Yennefer awoke to an awful crick in the neck, a sleeping, muzzled bard still in her lap, her hand still in his, and, as much as it made her stomach drop, footsteps coming towards their cell. It was a guard. It had to be. She took a deep, shaky breath; she and Jaskier were certainly going to be separated now.

Her hand gripped Jaskier’s hand just the slightest bit tighter.

When the source of the footsteps finally stopped at her cell door, Yennefer gathered every bit of nerve she had and glared at the guard that leered at her through the bars of her and Jaskier’s cell door window. It was the same guard that ripped him away from her the day before, and it was the same one who threw him back in with that damn muzzle. If he wanted to take Jaskier from her again - Yennefer had no doubt in her mind that he did - then he would have to rip him from her arms himself.

He was incredibly capable of doing just that, given that he wasn’t chained to a wall and unable to use his most powerful abilities, but that didn’t mean that she would just sit there and let him - 

The guard’s eyes snapped open in shock; blood erupted from his throat and poured into the cell through the window. Yennefer cringed in disgust and confusion, thankful that somehow, Jaskier was still asleep.

The corpse of the newly deceased Nilfgaardian guard - Nilfguardian? - slid down the door a bit before she could tell that it was kicked away. But by who?

First, she smelled the blood, then she smelled… onion.

Then, she heard that voice. His voice. The voice she hadn’t heard since the mountain. That _name_ she hadn’t heard since the mountain.

_“YEN!”_

Geralt’s gravelly, desperate voice boomed through the cell, and Yennefer let her head loll forward, relief washing over her as tears pricked her eyes. She should have known the Witcher would find her eventually. That damn wish, and all that. She almost thought she was dreaming, but everything wouldn’t hurt so bad if she was.

Jaskier, was woken up by the shout, no surprise, and he mumbled in confusion behind the muzzle. Yennefer opened her mouth to explain when the door blew off its hinges and slammed into the back wall that the both of them were up against.

She subsequently figured out that Geralt signed aard to blow the door away, just like he did to those Reavers when he kissed her on that mountain. When she finally saw him storm into the cell, she still had so many questions - What took him so long? Good Gods, were those _abs_ on his armor? - but they didn’t matter.

When Yennefer finally got a good look on Geralt’s face as light from the hall shone onto it, she could see an expression of pure horror that almost exactly mirrored the one she had when she saw Jaskier with that damn muzzle clamped onto his face for the first time. 

Because as Geralt’s gaze fell not on Yennefer, but on the scared, confused, forcibly silenced lark with his head still in her lap, shaking and reeling from the shock of everything from just the past few minutes, this was the moment when the Witcher saw it for the first time, too.

For a few seconds of shock, Geralt stood in front of them in absolute horror and silent fury at what had been done to Jaskier. Then, that shock dissipated in an instant, and he bent down and reached a hand towards Jaskier’s head. Yennefer’s stomach flipped, and as Jaskier shook his head and tried to pull his head away before Geralt had the chance to touch it, she knew his did, too.

“Jaskier-” Geralt went to grab the muzzle.

_“DON’T!”_

As his fingertips were only hairs away from the thin steel band that curved down the top of Jaskier's head, Geralt froze when he heard Yennefer shout, and thankfully, he pulled his hand away without questioning it. Her first word to him since the mountain, and it was screamed; in lighter circumstances, she would have thought about how fitting that was.

But they weren’t in lighter circumstances.

“You’ll only hurt him if you try to take it off.” she told him, calmer this time as she ran his fingers through Jaskier’s hair again to soothe him. “Trust me, I tried.”

Geralt looked at the two of them for a moment, drawing his gaze between Yennefer and Jaskier like he couldn’t decide who to focus on - the woman he loved, who never stopped trying to look him in the eye ever since he stormed in, or Jaskier, whose gaze only left the floor or wall ahead of him when he squeezed his eyes shut out of fear.

“Yen, you two - when did - how did-”

“It’s far from the right time to stammer questions, Geralt.” she explained, “It’s been on since yesterday. It’s enchanted. Trying to take it off by force will only hurt him, and it can only be removed with magic. I promised him I’d get it off as soon as I could use my magic again.”

Yennefer took her cuffed hand out of Jaskier’s hand and shakily lifted it, showing Geralt her wrist.

“Now, go back to that corpse, get it’s keys, and help me get this damn cuff off so I can do it.”

Geralt did just that.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Yennefer sings to Jaskier is the same song this fic's title is from! I've never seen the movie it was written for (The Hunger Games. I've only read the book) but I think the song is just lovely. I spent most of yesterday on this instead of watching a movie for uni 😅 I hope you all enjoyed! Insp. by one of my recent asks on my tumblr:  
> https://toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account.tumblr.com/post/632066926682767360/ok-so-ive-been-thinking-about-yennefer-and  
> It just kind of spiraled into this lol.  
> Tumblr: @toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account


End file.
